Mina Blutbayne
Mina Blutbayne (ミナ ブラトベーブ, Mina Buratobeibu) is the band manager of Wings of Archadia, as well as their agent, and handles planning their performances. A tough and independent woman, Mina traveled to Ilmarinen for yet unknown reasons and eventually took the position of manager, which contributed greatly to the band's current success within the city. Aside from her occupation, Mina is also a powerful mage, excelling at Sword Magic and Darkness Magic. She is known in certain parts of Fiore as The Blood Blade, named after the red steel rapier she fights with. She has a very dark past and was formerly a member of the dark guild, The Dreadnaughts, under the title of Executioner. She was also the past lover of Sparrow Blunderbuss, a current member within that guild, though he believes her to be deceased. Appearance Mina is a slender and young beautiful woman with vibrant red eyes and long flowing dark red hair with bangs most often hanging over her left eye. Most of her outfits accentuate her figure in some fashion, hugging her body. She has a rather robust number of outfits that she cycles through which are made up of mainly dresses and skirts paired with high boots or heels. She's hardly ever seen dressing casually except on one occassion that Royce asked her to. During that time, she wore tight denim jeans torn at the knees, light blue sneakers with white trimming and a blue Wings of Archadia tshirt. She was forced to wear this after losing a bet and her first date with Royce. Her idea of a casual outfit consists of a white shirt, large red ribbon tied around her neck, short black pleated skirt and black knee high boots, though its rare to see her in this. When engaging in battles, Mina can be seen wearing a tight black bodysuit complete with black boots and gloves, and a white fur coat. She carries herself in a dignified manner and can be seen with a long cigarette holder. Personality As stated before, Mina is a strong and independent young woman who has a commanding, and sometimes intimidating, presence. As the band's manager, Mina is rather possessive of them, a similar quality she shares with Nestor Stocks, though her's borders on the line of controlling as she prefers to know what the band is doing and where they are at all times. This does create some friction between her and them, as Wings of Archadia is known for being more carefree and spontaneous than Mina would like. But all in all, they work well together and she's primarily responsible for managing the band's tour dates and arranging the venues for their performances. Aside from her rather cold and stern demeanor, Mina does also exhibit great confidence and charm when needed to sway people to her favor, not above using her womanly looks and a bit of a flirtacious persona to manipulate them. Though she has admitted to being slightly disgusted when having to use such tactics because it would mean that she would need to dumb herself down. Instead, she prefers to have others view her as she would like, a strong and intelligent woman, but realizes that men can be controlled easier through accessing the primitive functions of their minds. She extremely gifted in academics and social sciences, which applies regularly when interacting with people. Royce has commented how Mina acts as two different people when engaging with Wings of Archadia and others outside of that group. Mina's difficult life has made it nearly impossible for her to express her true feelings. The only known happiness she ever experienced was when she was with Sparrow. And consequently, the only known true form of pain she ever experienced was when he was taken away from her and she had to go into hiding while pretending she was dead to him. Because of this, her relationship with Royce was difficult to maintain and the two would split several times with her citing her inability to open up emotionally to him. Regardless of this difficulty, Mina has admitted feelings for Royce, more so than she lets on, as when she visited him in the hospital and refused to leave his side. History Mina's past is something of a tragic poem. Her family was killed when their village was attacked and destroyed by roaming marauders. She was taken as a slave and was forced to do what was necessary to survive. Its believed that a part of her died the same day her parents did and it forever changed her. One day, finally deciding if she were to die a slave or fight for her freedom, she killed her capture and fled from the marauders. For days, she roamed a barren wasteland. Starving and malnourished, she collapsed under the hot sun. While she teetered between life and dead, she had a vision of a young man with red eyes who would come and save her. She awoke days later in a strange home where she was being nursed back to health. Upon discovering who had saved her, she was shocked to find out it was the very same man from her vision. While hesitant of him, Mina grew to trust him. She learned that this man also suffered a terrible fate. He was born to an abusive family who regulary beat and tortured him. They had such disdain for him that his family was willing to kill him. Instead the man fought back and was also left to fend for himself in the very same wasteland that she walked. Refusing to give up, he fought tooth and nail to survive against the monsters that plagued the land. Almost as if something otherwordly brought them together, these two tortured hearts found each other and they fell in love. They made a promise that the other would never allow anyone to hurt them again. The two walked a path filled with desire and violence, choosing to lash out their pain against others that would stand in their way. Eventually their path came to a man named Lancaster Black, who promised them a world that they could call their own, a world where the man could fulfill his promise of never letting anyone or anything hurt Mina again. They joined Lancaster's guild, The Dreadnaughts, and she took on a new identity and the title of The Executioner, while the man would take the name, Sparrow Blunderbuss, and the title of The Ironclad. What first seemed like the perfect life for them, Mina was soon becoming dissuaded of the life of bloodshed Lancaster was leading them through. Sparrow become drunk with the power at his hands and was soon corrupted by it. Mina could no longer see the man she loved behind his eyes and wanted to leave the guild. Lancaster stated very clearly that no one could leave the guild, and no one could stay in it if they couldn't follow his orders. Without Sparrow's knowledge, Lancaster had sent several guild members to eliminate Mina, who he had seen as a potential threat to his plans. The resulting battle nearly left her dead, and fearing that Sparrow would be used to draw her out as bait, Mina pretended to have died. Lancaster masked her death as an assassination by the Rune Knights, which further cemented his belief in Lancaster's plans. Mina once again found herself having to change her identity and appearance to live in the world, assuming her current identity as Mina Blutbayne. Her heart ached with the loss of Sparrow at her side and she traveled to the only place she knew Lancaster wouldn't return to: Ilmarinen. She had to recreate a new persona for herself and arrived shortly after Wings of Archadia was formed and the seeming death of Johan Hellstrom. With vast experience and her personality, she was able to propel the band's success from the Foundation District to playing at the Star Atlas in the Sky District of the city. Since then, she has stayed on as the band's manager and agent. At one point during her time with the band, Mina began an on and off relationship with lead band member, Royce Blixtrande, with her having Royce promise not to discuss it with other members. Plot *002. Journey to Magnolia *003. Making an Entrance *006. Dark Days Coming *007. A World Without Music *009. The Desert Flower Equipment Lamentations: Mina fights with a long rapier with a black handguard that umbrellas from the base of the blade over her hand and brown handle. There are two prongs with balls at the tip that stick out on opposite sides. The blade is a noticeable blood red, which contributes to her moniker as The Blood Blade. Lamentations appears to have some form of magical property as its able to channel and direct large amounts of darkness energy which she uses in conjunction with her sword fighting. Magic & Abilities Mina has always been regarded as a top-class fighter, as evident with her time in the Dreadnaughts and her title as the Executioner. While possessing a slender female frame, Mina has enhanced levels of physical power, immense magical potential and nearly unparalled sword skills. Her style of fighting and magic casting is known to be precise, wielding incredible speed and power behind each attack. She has a series of skills and spells that lets her attack from any range though lacks any defensive spells. Instead, Mina relies on her own speed and dodging ability. Physical Abilities Enhanced Agility: Mina has been gifted with extraordinary acrobatic prowess, more so than any other member within Wings of Archadia. Using her petite frame, Mina can maneuver herself with excellent coordination to either place herself in a more advantageous position for attacks or to use her agility to evade incoming attacks by leaping out of its way. She can accomplish any form of acrobatic maneuver such as sommersaults, back flips and even uses her sword as a means of support by stabbing the floor and performing a handstand to avoid ground attacks. All the while, Mina maintains a graceful form that rivals any professional acrobat in Earth Land. Enhanced Strength: It is not entirely known to what level of strength Mina possesses but it clearly above that of normal humans as she's able to effortlessly slice through sturdy materials with a swing of her sword. This allows her to clash against individuals of great strength and remain on equal footing. It may be hinted that Mina is much stronger that she lets on as Royce has mentioned that she actively holds back most of her power as to not intimidate people around her. Another testament to her strength is her ability to lift full grown men off the ground by the collar. This means that nearly all of her physical attributes are much higher than normal individuals and her small frame does not clearly represent how much strength she possesses. Enhanced Speed: '''To match her agility and strength, Mina is capable of moving at dizzying speeds, able to deliver strikes at the blink of an eye even before some opponents are able to react. Offensively, she can send a flurry of attacks and spells to overwhelm her targets, seamlessly blending both methods with ease. Her speed can even manipulate a person's sight, creating an optical illusion as if several swords are coming at them simultaneously by moving her hands so fast that afterimages are created. Defensively, Mina uses her speed to evade attacks with no visible difficulty, either choosing to parry it with her rapier and deflect the attack, or dodge it completely by seemingly disappearing in an instant and reappearing next to the attack unharmed. '''Master Swordsmanship Specialist: Aside from her considerable skill in the art of casting magic, Mina is a master swordswoman of extraordinary caliber. When wielding her rapier, she executes her attacks with pinpoint precision and great focus, with each one possessing considerable power behind them. Her swordplay is almost an art, as she's able to quickly change the directions of her attacks to continuously press her opponents and leave them disoriented. She is able to easily target non-vital areas of the body if she only wished to wound her opponents. Trained by Alten Lehrer, Mina's style of fighting consists of mainly combinations attacks that she uses to expose an opponent's weak spots and create an opening for her to strike. She then blends thrusting techniques to pierce those openings and deal tremendous damage. Its highly reminiscent of a fencing style, which allows her to incorporate her speed, strength and coordination through one handed techniques. As stated before, there is a certain beauty to her fighting form, moving gracefully and almost fluid-like between attacks. She displays great flexibility and coordination, able to twirl around her opponents and strike without effort. This flexibility also allows her to evade attacks without compromising her defense. It is unknown how she would rank against other master swordsman but given that she was a member of the Dreadnaughts with the title of Executioner, it can be assumed that she was an expert at dispatching her opponents. *'First Triangle '(最初の三角形, Saisho no Sankaku) A quick three point sword combination that targets the extremities and alternates sides when attacking. Mina first attacks high to draw an opponent's attention and leave their midsection vulnerable. She'll then follow up with a strike to each side of their weakended middle defense. The third strike has the highest probably of hitting its target as the other two served primarily as a means to lower a target's defense and focus their attention to other areas besides its intended direction. Mental Abilities High Intelligence: To compliment her physical abilities, Mina is also gifted with a brilliant mind and known to be quite knowledgeable in various academic fields, especially business management and economics. He regularly maintains the band's finances and organizes their tours with vendors all over Fiore. When engaging in conversation, she's absolutely confident, articulant and well-spoken, more so than Roffe Snow, who she plays chess with. During recreational time, she's often seen with a book in her hand with the subjects being a wide variety of scholarly books and creative writings. Expert Tactician: One of Mina's most astounding qualities is her ability to devise tactics in the middle of battle with amazing speed and analytical reasoning. She can analyze an opponent's attack patterns, deduce their next movement and create an appropriate response to it. This means she can anticipate most opponents moves without assistance from her other physical abilities. During her time in the Dreadnaughts, as The Executioner, she could fight any opponent and remain undefeated, with most of her victories ending shortly after they began through simple deduction. She could effortlessly cut down her opponents after a single attack, and sometimes even before that attack connected. Unfortunately, this sort of brilliant tactical reasoning allowed her to devise plans that would further Lancaster's goals, and exploited this quality ruthlessly, even at the expense of the lives of others. Trying to run from that horrible past, Mina primarily uses her tactical mind for more mundane thinking, such as coming up with the proper schedule and looking for the right vendors that would further enhance the band's reputation. Magical Abilities Immense Magical Power: 'Despite hiding her true power, Mina possesses immense levels of magical power that easily puts her in the same league as S-Class mages. When exerting it, she can manifest it as red aura and use its appearance to intimidate her opponents. Its been said that her aura causes others to be overcome with a sense of fear to the point it can paralyze weaker willed individuals with a simple stare. Royce has admitted that when Mina does this, she can appear quite frightening and her level of power could potentially rival his own. Because of her higher levels of power, her magical spells are considerably stronger than normal mages and she's able to cast them for longer periods of time so long as her stamina holds up. Among all the members of Wings of Archadia, Mina has the most control over her power, able to keep it from flaring up unintentionally, as well as masking it so it remains undetectable by others. This allows her to lie about her strength to her opponents without raising any suspicion, and then mentally raise it when she needs to utilize her full power. Requip: Lamentations 'Requip (換装 Kansō lit. Express Equipmentary) also known as Ex-quip, is a Holder Type Magic related to the summoning of equipment and is Mina's principle method of equipping her weapon, Lamentations. Like Erza Scarlet, Mina is considerably skilled in this magic, possessing master ability to summon her rapier even during the heat of battle. While she can apear unarmed one second, she can instantly equip herself with Lamentataions and ready herself for combat. Mina prefers to use this magic so that she enter areas without worry of her weapon drawing in unwanted attention, as well as a means to protect herself when danger becomes present. Sword Magic Sword Magic '(剣の魔法 • 嘆き ''Ken no Mahō) A Holder Type Magic revolving around the use of swords and casting magical attacks through them, namely her rapier. Through Lamentations, Mina is able perform a multitude of devastating attacks that range between close and long range, and given her tremendous skill is sword fighting she can deliver them with lethal precision. Lamentations's primary magic is '''Darkness Magic (闇の魔法 Yami no Mahō), and Mina is able to cast its energy with either explosive properties to increase its damage, or release it in a more condensed form to slice through targets cleanly. With Mina's level of power, these spells possess considerable force behind them and effects a wide area when releasing it. When cast, her version of Darkness Magic appears jet black with a red glowing trim around him and take various shapes depending on what spell she's casting. Also, against other magics, she can effectively cancel out other spells directed at her either through sheer power or cleaving the magic in two so that it harmlessly passes her. Within her arsenal, she possesses a wide variety of spells that can attack from any range and strike against either a single target or entire groups. *'Funeral Procession' (葬列, Sōretsu) Mina raises her rapier and draws a red star pattern in the direction of her opponent, with arcs of crimson energy trailing behind it, creating a blood red magical seal in front of her. She then thrusts forward through the seal and unleashes a powerful stream of black energy that inflicts great damage to anything in its path. Arcs of red energy trail off the stream as it travels towards its intended target. Even against strong opponents, the spell possesses considerable concussive force and is able to push them back or potentially shatter through shields and other barriers. While its still effective against a group of targets, its real power can be seen against a single target who feels the full force of the attack. Because of its power, Mina can use this spell to block other spells directed at her either by causing them to collide against one another or deflect the other's path by a precise strike. *'Wake of Ruin' (破滅航跡, Hametsu Kōseki) By concentrating her magical energies into her sword, Mina is able to drastically, although only temporarily, increase her speed and strength. After she's gathered enough energy, she will launch herself forward, often destrying the ground underneath, and the flying towards her opponent. She then collides with explosive force and carries her opponent through the wake of the attack, creating a deep trail in the process. While most of her magical attacks revolve around the color black, Wake of Ruin takes on the properties of her magical aura which is a deep red. This spell deals considerable damage upon initial impact, while continuing to deal damage as they travel, and then ultimately leads to a massive explosion at the end of the path. Mina was seen using this spell against her former mentor, Alten Lehrer, though the latter was able to withstand the impact from the attack and explosion due to his immense durability. The explosion it produced was enough to completely destroy the ground underneath her, and the final explosion was enough to blow away a series of trees in a wooded area, as well as the trees within the path of the attack, and clear our a whole section. *'Gloomsday '(グルムスヂ, Gurumusudi) By lunging her rapier into the air above her, Mina emits a thin stream of black energy from the blade's tip that shoots up into the sky above. As it flies upward, three seals appear one above the other, with the third one being quite large and black in color that covers the area with the other two eventually fading away. From the remaining large seal, a burst of black rain showers down on her target, with each raindrop able to pierce her target and their defenses like a needle. While a single rain drop has nearly unnoticeable effect, the cumulative damage is quite devastating and is even able to reduce a large structure to rubble if the rainfall is directed towards a single area. *'Song of Sorrow' (悲しみの歌, Kanashimi no Uta) Using her rapier, Mina draws a complete circle roughly the same height as herself, creating a large magical seal in front of her of black and red energy. Once the seal has been completed, Mina typically slashes across its surface, causing the entire seal to shatter like glass and send the shards flying towards her targets at great speeds, skewering them with the pieces. If directed towards a single target, it can inflict tremendous damage, often leaving her victims in a crippled state, as well as a bloody mess. This spell possesses similar properties to her Gloomsday spell, but has less range and a smaller area of effect. It is primarily used when Mina needs a quicker spell to cast as the preparation time is considerably less than her Gloomsday spell. *'Black Burial' (黒埋葬, Kuro Maisō) A two part spell that requires Mina to make initial contact with her sword for it to take full effect. Channeling black energy into her blade, Mina will rush forward and strike an opponent with Lamentations, releasing a magical seal upon contact. From the center of this seal, a black orb will grow until it completely encases its target and forms in the shape of a coffin while trapping the opponent within it. Finally, the coffin will detonate and cause a massive explosion of black energy, dealing tremendous damage. Because of how the spell is designed, the victim of this spell feels the full force of its power since they are unable to escape the blast radius once trapped inside. The opponent is bound inside this coffin through Mina's magical power, meaning they remain trapped so long as she wills them to. Only strong opponents are capable of freeing themselve from this dark construct. *'Condolensces from the Reaper' (死神から弔客, Shinigami Kara Chōkaku) Channeling the same energy of darkness into her blade, Mina slashes the air in a complete arc, leaving a trail of black energy in its wake that expands outward and strikes everything in its path. The shape of this arc resembles the curved blade a scythe, giving the appearance of the grim reaper's weapon as she strikes her opponents. A simple and rather quick spell that she can cast, it is primarily used to clear an area or push back her enemies if she is being surrounded. Mina has been able to increase its range by completing full rotations to create an even larger arc. This allows her to hit multiple targets around her and avoid the possibility of her enemies ganging up on her. While its been seen to primarily knock back her opponents, Mina can also change the arc of energy's effect to cause it to slice through objects, as well, slicing through them cleanly. *'Repose of the Dead' (死者の安息, Shisha no Ansoku) Channeling her magical power into her weapon, Mina strikes the ground with the tip of her rapier, creating a large black magical seal underneath her. From there, the magical seal will flare up and a series of lightning bolts of black energy erupts from the ground and travels toward a target, causing large explosions upon contact. Even if the target were to leap out of the way, Mina is able to mentally command the attacks to bend and move to follow them. Once one bolt strikes a target, all other attacks will immediately rush towards that area to deal additional damage, resulting in a huge explosion of black and red energy. A side effect of this attack is that the bolts can stun her targets momentarily, allowing time for secondary attacks to follow through. Advanced Spells *'Dead Men Tell No Tales' (死人に口なし, Shininnikuchinashi) A spell in which Mina has described as her ultimate attack. It has yet to be witnessed. Stats Mina's statistics are listed to the left. These statistics are a close approximation of her baseline abilities. They do not reflect her full potential, and may vary during moments of stress or determination. As such, they are not to be taken as definitive stats, but merely as an overall indication of her level of power. Her statistics are broken down to: Offense, Defense, Speed and Intelligence, with a fifth statistic specific to her character which is Sexiness. Trivia *Mina's theme song is Seven Devils by Florence and the Machines.